A.I.M Pursuit
AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) is an organization of brilliant scientists and their hirelings dedicated to the acquisition of power and the overthrow of all governments by technological means. A day, at a school science fair, Tony Stark (Iron Man) is approached by the Controller on behalf of A.I.M. and tricked into making a mind/machine interface work. The head of A.I.M., angered that this may compromise their M.O.D.O.K project orders all efforts on the interface to cease and Tony and the others exterminated. However, Tony has already been successful, allowing the Controller to take over his friends. Now Iron Man must step in and save the day, only to find his life being saved in the process by the daughter of his greatest enemy. An other day, Iron Man is tracking an international thief named Moses Magnum right to AIM’s secret headquarters, but the Black Panther is after Magnum as well. Magnum stole something that belongs to the Panther, and the Panther aims to get it back, even if he has to go through Iron Man to do it. It is later revealed that Magnum had stolen Vibranium from Wakanda and killed the Panther's father in a revolt. The Panther eventually acknowledges that allowing other people to help him might be a better way to operate than keeping Wakanda's borders forever closed, as it might have saved his father's life if it had been done earlier, once Iron Man saves his life. Walking with Rhodey Pepper gets knocked down by a man (Rick Jones) running down the street shortly after the Hulk appears chasing him down the street and destroys the building the man ran into which turns out to be secret A.I.M facility causing A.I.M to attack the Hulk. Rhodey (Rhodes) and Pepper (Pots) call Tony who at first doesn't believe them saying that "The Hulk isn't real, that just an urban legend." Arriving in his "Dyanamo Buster" armor after he sees a picture sent by Pepper, Tony arrives and fights the Hulk while his friends look for the man they met earlier believing that the Hulk is after him. The Hulk beats Tony and leaves to find the man he was following once he is gone the man walks up to Tony and pulls out a controller disk. The man reveals that he is under the Controller's control and places the disk on the armor brainwashing Tony. The Armor's counter measures hit the man with a small blast destroying the disk controlling him before the controller has Iron Man fly off to meet him. Pepper and Rhodey discover the unconscious man and take him inside the A.I.M facility to hide him from the Hulk, the man introduces himself as Rick Jones before the three are conerned by the Hulk who starts to attack Pepper and Rhodey when Rick stops him. Rick explains that he and the Hulk have been running ever since the Hulk became the Hulk, trying to keep him from being captured by anyone who would want to use him as a weapon. Rhodey and Pepper try to get Rick and the Hulk to help them save Iron Man but Rick refuses saying that they can't get involved and they have to keep moving. The Hulk however disagrees and says he wants to help his friends Pepper and Rhodey. The Controller uses Iron Man to get revenge on A.I.M by using him to destroy their facilities. MODOK arrives and tries to stop them, but is defeated. Hulk, Pepper, Rhodey, and Rick arrive, Hulk starts to attack Tony while his friends stop the Controller. Once they do, Rick thanks them and leaves with the Hulk while Pepper admits that her position on their own team by seem hard as it isn't near as tough as Rick and the Hulk have it. The Torch At the beginning of Dark Reign, the recently resurrected Toro is captured by A.I.M. during an attempt to kill the Mad Thinker. Initial experimentaton on Toro makes the Mad Thinker realize that he can reconstruct the Torch. A.I.M. steals the Torch's body from Arlington National Cemetery for expermentation. After the Mad Thinker and A.I.M. spent months experimenting on the Torch's corpse and on the captive Toro they are able to resurrect the Torch, but it seems all memories of his past have disappeared. The Mad Thinker gains complete control of the Torch using "Compound D", a synthetic molecule he adapted from the Torch's cells (H42N2C2O6), which he dubs "Horton cells"). Meanwhile Toro's powers begin to manifest themselves again and a startling discovery proves that Toro's mutation may have been created as a result of his mother working for Horton. Torch is now a weapon of mass destruction, and quickly reduces an entire town to debris, killing everyone and everything in sight after destroying several Estonian air force jets. An escape attempt by Toro damages the control mechanism and sets the Torch free. He immediately returns to the A.I.M. carrier and he begins murdering everyone in sight (again). The Mad Thinker reveals that he has managed to synthesize more of the Compound D which can interact with living organisms and control them. As he teleports to safety from the Torch killing spree the compound starts pouring into the ocean. It reaches an Atlantean settlement below, as it was being visited by Namor, and infects the population. As the Compound D infection spreads through New York, the Torch battles an infected Submariner and learns the nature of Compound D after Submariner attempts to infect him. Submariner is defeated and while Reed Richards can create an antidote, he cannot create enough of it fast enough. The Torch, Toro and Johnny Storm team up and attack the Mad Thinker's base and the Thinker at first refuses to cooperate until the Torch threatens that he will scorch the Earth clean to defeat Compound D, starting with the Thinker. The Thinker realizes that the Torch is telling the truth as the Torch's emotions, memories and humanity are still recovering from his recent demise and restoration and provides the antidote but warns them of it and teleports away. The antidote is released and all infected victims are cured but Reed Richards determines that the antidote breaks down all Horton cells, not just Compound D and that the Torch has only a few days before he is destroyed. Toro attempts to investigate his past to learn of his parents association with Professor Horton and learns that some Horton cell prototypes were stolen long ago. The Torch is visited by the Golden Age Vision who advises him to seek out Toro and aid him while he still can. Their quest takes them across the world to where an underground society called "New Berlin" exists and the population is educated under the premise that the Axis powers won WW2. Yet if anyone leaves the underground city they burst into flames and are incinerated. The leader of this colony lures the Mad Thinker to it and then holds him captive to coerce him to cooperate. It is revealed that all citizens of New Berlin are in fact androids created from the unstable prototype Horton cells and that the atmosphere of the colony is saturated with anti-combustion chemicals to keep the citizens intact, however this also prevents Toro and the Torch from using their powers and they are captured. The Thinker helps stabilize the New Berlin leader's weapon, the android Inhuman Torch so that it can function without destroying itself due to the prototype Horton cells. However the Thinker also aids in freeing the Torch and Toro, and despite the Torch still dying from the Compound D antidote engages the Inhuman Torch in battle. The Inhuman Torch however can easily control, absorb and manipulate all flame and siphons the flame from the Torch and Toro. However the Torch bids Toro farewell and reignites himself and engages the Inhuman Torch in a final fight. The Torch at first offers to aid the Inhuman Torch in learning about itself and humanity but it refuses and the Torch then channels his nova flame into the Inhuman Torch which overloads it and renders it a fused and inert statue, however a side effect of using his nova flame this time was that it deactivated the enzyme that breaks down Horton cells and thus the Torch's life is saved. They bid farewell to New Berlin and the Golden Age Vision takes them back to New York. The Thinker escapes and reveals that the leader of "New Berlin" is himself an android due to the actual founder of the city being unable to have children of his own. The leader of new Berlin didn't believe this until he left the city and exploded into flame and was incinerated.